Eye of the Wizard: A Fantasy Adventure (23 page)

"The merchant said the cave is only five miles away," the young warlock said. "How did we get lost in only five miles?"

Jamie sighed. "I did my best, but Scruff got us so lost, even I couldn't get us back on track."

Romy snickered, but Jamie shut her up with a scowl.

The sun setting, they made camp between birch trees, the earth strewn with pebbles and cyclamens. Romy lit a fire—the only thing she was good at, if you asked Jamie—and they curled up in their cloaks. Though it was summer, the night was chilly, and Jamie lay with Scruff on one side, Romy on the other. Scruff was a big brute and blocked the wind, while Romy was always warm, like a living furnace. Jamie slept like a log, cuddling her sheathed sword, too weary to even dream.

When dawn broke, Jamie took a pan and oats from her backpack, and cooked everyone porridge. They kept walking in the morning, dew clinging to the birches, grass, and mushrooms. As she led the way, map in her hand, Jamie thought back to how the skeleton had tripped her.
Dry Bones.
It had to be him. Why was he after them? Was Dry Bones the warlock who destroyed Burrfield, who murdered their parents? Jamie swallowed, suddenly feeling close to tears.
I'm going to kill him. I'm going to avenge your deaths, Mom and Dad.
She had spent the past five years studying swordplay, preparing for this moment. For five years, since she was ten, she had thought of nothing but killing that warlock. And now that warlock was hunting her too.
Let him come at me again. I crushed his hand last time. Next time, I'll crush his skull.
She growled.

She looked at her brothers. She knew they shared the same sentiment. Scruff was a sweetheart and rarely got angry, and Neev was thoughtful and had taught himself to control his anger. But Jamie knew she could count on them. They wanted Dry Bones dead, too.
They hate him just as much.
Jamie sighed. She often kicked and insulted her big brothers, but suddenly she loved them so much, she wanted to cry. Strangely, she suddenly even loved Romy... kind of.

Finally, Jamie managed to make sense of this blasted map, and at noon, they found the cave.

"At last!" Scruff exclaimed.

They faced a hill covered with trees, pebbles, and mossy boulders. A cliff rose atop the hill like a jutting tooth, drenched in sunlight, bedecked with vines. In the center of the cliff, the roogs' cave gaped.

Jamie nodded. "This is the place." She rolled up the map and stuffed it into her backpack. "Now let's go save Yona's daughter."

They walked up the hill, heading toward the cave, when a stench hit Jamie's nostrils. She looked up, growling, and saw a roog sitting outside the cave.

Jamie shivered. She had seen roogs only in picture books, and they were even uglier in person. The roog ahead was lanky, his skin milky white, his head bald. Worst of all, he had mouths instead of eyes, their fangs dripping drool. When he looked up at the Bullies, he opened and closed those mouths as if blinking.

"Finally," the roog said, voice like cracking wood. "You're late, you are." He blinked at Scruff. "Blimey, you're huge."

Romy scratched her head. "Are you the merchant's daughter?" she asked.

The roog hissed through all three mouths. "What daughter? You were supposed to get here yesterday, you were. That's what Dry Bones said. We were fifty of us waiting for you, but the others gave up and left."

"Well, soooo sorry!" Romy said. "The merchant should have given us a better map."

"Wait, wait!" Neev said, stomping up the slope toward the roog, burrs on his robes. "Dry Bones the warlock? He told you and your friends to wait for us?"

"We've been set up," Jamie said and raised her sword. Beside her, Scruff raised his mace. The sight of this roog disgusted Jamie, and she couldn't wait to kill it.

"Wait one moment," Romy said to the pale roog, frowning. "Do you mean you are
not
the merchant's daughter?"

Scruff took a menacing step toward the roog, Norman raised, its spikes glinting. "This whole thing was a trap."

The roog sighed. When he spoke again, he no longer spoke from the mouth beneath his nose, but from the mouth that functioned as his left eye. "Well, it should have been, but you got lost and ruined it, you did. It would have been a great surprise... but now only I'm here."

"Cobweb...," Jamie whispered, a sudden chill gripping her, trickling down her spine. She could see that her friends were thinking the same thing.

"We have to get back," Scruff said. He grabbed the roog by the scaly neck, his hand trembling, his face red. "Show us the way back, quick, and we'll let you live."

As they raced through the forest, Jamie tightened her lips, her fist clutching her sword. Her stomach ached with fear. They had not fallen for the trap... but Cobweb was alone, and Dry Bones was after them.

"Damn," Jamie whispered.

* * * * *

Cobweb had never imagined she'd become a bodyguard. Not in a million years. And yet here she was, her bow in her hands and a dagger in her belt, guarding a human from roogs.

It was true. Roogs did fear (and hate) spiderlings. They sometimes stalked the outskirts of Spidersilk Forest, not daring to approach for fear of spiderling arrows. Cobweb had learned to fire her bow from a young age, and had once even joined the adult spiderlings in patrol of their borders.

I'm an adult now, too,
Cobweb thought, sitting in this seedy human tavern, keeping her eye on the door for invading roogs.
I'm sixteen now, a grown spiderling.
After their Star Ceremony, Spiderlings were grown ups; even those banished from Spidersilk Forest. At the thought of her home, of those trees and streams where she grew up, tears filled Cobweb's eyes. She missed home so much, she ached.
If not for my clumsy tongue....

Cobweb blinked and wiped her tears away, hoping Yona did not see. But he saw, and he handed her a kerchief. "Are you all right?" he asked gently.

She took the kerchief and blotted the last of her tears. "I'm fine, I'm j-j-just... tinking of youw d-daughtew." She hated lying, but how would Yona understand if she spoke of the world she had lost? No human had seen Spidersilk Forest and would not fathom its beauty, a beauty no place in the human world could match.

But there was one thing in this strange human world that comforted her: her friends.
Especially Scruff,
she thought and felt her face tingle. The Bullies were her new clan. Cobweb had not known them for long, but she loved them wholeheartedly—even the demon Romy.

"You're sad," Yona said. "I'll order you some sweet summer wine. I'll be right back."

The merchant in the dusty cloak went to the bar, and Cobweb watched his back, making sure no roogs could approach without first meeting her arrows. Yona ordered and received her drink, and as Cobweb watched him intently, she narrowed her eyes. A gasp fled her lips. It seemed to her that Yona had—it couldn't be, could it?—pulled a vial from his pocket, then splashed something into her cup.

Cobweb's stomach knotted. Yona had moved fast, like an illusionist performing a slight of hand. Human eyes would never have noticed it, but spiderlings had hawk eyes. Whatever Yona had done to her drink, he had tried to mask it. No doubt he was used to fooling humans, but spiderlings were not easily deceived.

Cobweb missed her friends. Suddenly she felt very alone.

Yona returned to the table and placed the pewter cup before her. "Sweet summer wine!" he said. "As sweet and rosy as you."

She nodded with a slight smile. "T-t-ank you, Yona. You'we vewy gwacious." She looked at the pink drink. "I hope you d-don't mind me pwying, b-but... I was watching fow woogs, and... I saw you p-pouw someting into my dwink. D-do you mind if I ask w-what it is? I hope I'm n-not offending you."

Yona's eyes widened; he seemed shocked that she had noticed. Cobweb wondered if she was just ignorant in humans ways and had insulted him. For an instant, his eyes seemed almost angry... but then he laughed, a deep belly laugh. "Why, you are observant. I hope you don't mind. You see, at these cheap taverns, the bartender often waters down the drinks. I carry around a bottle of spirits to spice things up. I gave your drink an extra kick."

Cobweb was a trusting person. She hated to think that anyone could lie. Surely this poor merchant was telling the truth.
Be trusting, Cobweb!
she admonished herself. "Tank you," she said with a smile and lowered eyes. "But I'm not g-good with stwong dwinks. Dey m-make me feew siwwy."

Suddenly a voice boomed, making Cobweb start.

"Watering down my drinks?!"

It was the bartender, waddling toward them, cheeks flushed. Cobweb bit her lip. The tavern—the cheapest in Queenpool—was full of slovenly, menacing fellows, and the bartender was the worst among them. His beard was scraggly, his apron stained, and his bare shoulders were as hairy as his head. Cobweb winced, cowering in her chair.

"You think I water down my drinks?" the bartender repeated, slamming his fist against the table, his cheeks flushed. "You don't like 'em, don't buy 'em!"

With that, the bartender lifted Cobweb's drink and downed it.

Yona groaned.

Cobweb watched with wide eyes.

The bartender kept his gaze, fiery, upon Yona. But as Cobweb watched, the fire left his eyes. Like wax melting, the anger melted off the bartender, and became... softness. The bartender blinked, licked his lips, and Cobweb gasped; love filled his eyes!

"Oh... I'm sorry, sweetie," the bartender said to Yona. "I shouldn't have yelled at you. Here, let's kiss and make up."

Yona groaned again, louder this time.

The bartender opened his arms and tried to hug Yona. The merchant squirmed and managed to free himself, knocking back his chair. The bartender was making kissing sounds, reaching out his arms.
What's gotten into him?
Cobweb wondered, gaping. The tavern's barflies gaped too, rubbing their eyes.

Cobweb understood.

Yona placed a love potion in my drink.

"Stand back!" Yona demanded, but the bartender would not. He tried to hug and kiss Yona again. Cursing, Yona stepped back, knocking over a table. The bartender came after him, eyes full of love, and Yona fled. He ran out the door, the bartender in pursuit, and Cobweb stood frozen.
Let him run!
she thought.
I can't protect him now. Not after what he did, after he tried to enchant me.

She bit her lip, remembering Romy's warning. The demon had been right.

What was going on?

Chapter Sixteen

Bone Hunt

Dry Bones fled town just before his spell died.

The portly bartender chasing him, he raced out the city gates into the forest. He'd have killed the bartender, but he was low on magic; keeping this facade of flesh and hair sucked up more power than he'd expected. He was, after all, a warlock—a master of black magic, an expert of the occult. He could summon demons with the best of them, but spells of disguise, borrowed from other schools of magic, exhausted him.

"Where are you, sweetie?" the bartender was crying out. Dry Bones slipped into the trees surrounding Queenpool. He heard the bartender looking for him, weeping, crunching twigs and leaves. Dry Bones could maintain his spell no longer; he was all out of magic. The disguise flowed off his body like a rain of black sparks. He held out his arms and watched as the skin peeled back, revealing muscles which soon melted, leaving but bleached bones. He felt the flesh melt off the rest of his body, too, and the old chill returned. It was so
cold
when you were a skeleton.

Baumgartner, who had hid in his pocket, slipped into Dry Bones' ribcage, the snake's favorite perch. There he hissed contentedly, and Dry Bones fed him a dead mouse from another pocket.

"Why do you hide from me?" the bartender cried, but his voice was moving farther away; he was searching among the wrong trees.

Dry Bones sighed. "A warlock shouldn't hide between the trees like a coward, I know, Baumgartner, but I'm tired. Enough magic for a few hours." After casting spells from competing schools of magic, he always needed a while to replenish his reserves.

"Magic is like blood in your body," he'd tell his students. "It gives you life, but every time you use it, you lose that blood. Use enough, and you'll need time to recover. Use too much, you'll die."

"Is that what happened to you?" Neev had asked when he heard this lesson. This had been five years ago, when Neev was just twelve, the youngest apprentice ever admitted to the Coven. "Did you use too much magic, draw so much of this 'blood' until you became a skeleton?"

The other apprentices gasped. A few looked away as if wishing they could disappear, and one student indeed cast an invisibility spell. You never asked Dry Bones about how he became a skeleton. That was an unwritten rule of the Coven—one Neev, a new apprentice, had not yet heard, or perhaps purposefully flaunted.

"Shut up!" hissed the apprentice beside Neev, a black-haired girl with too many earrings. But Dry Bones raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

"It's all right, Naya," he said to the girl. "Young Neev has a right to ask. We have no secrets here. We never have secrets when magic is involved. No, Neev. I did not use too much magic. I was, you see... in a fire."

The students leaned forward, gaping, knowing that here was a momentous moment in Coven history. Finally, the mysterious Dry Bones, the High Warlock himself, was opening up! Dry Bones smiled wryly—at least, as much as it was possible for his skull to smile wryly.

"What happened?" Neev whispered, awed.

Your father happened,
Dry Bones wanted to say.
I killed him for it, and soon I'll kill you and your siblings.
But no—not yet. The moment would come in good time.

"A knight burned my grimoire," he said softly. "I was young and foolish. Without thinking, I reached into the fire, and it grabbed me. I'd have died, but I was powerful enough already, powerful enough to defeat death." Dry Bones' bony fists clenched. "I could not stop the fire from taking my flesh, but with magic, my apprentices, I clung to life. Because magic is greater than death. Black magic can tame, enslave, and shape death. Remember that always." He stared at Neev.
And remember, too, that wronging a warlock is a terrible mistake. I killed your father, Neev; he was that knight who burned me. And I will destroy all his heirs. That jinx I cursed you with is only the beginning.